Cell Response and Regulation (CRR)

CELL RESPONSE AND REGULATION PROGRAM ABSTRACT The Cell Response and Regulation (CRR) Program is a basic science program at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI). CRR discovery science supports the Center’s mission “to understand cancer from its beginnings” by gaining new insight into basic mechanisms of cancer biology and providing a foundation for addressing critical clinical issues according to HCI’s strategic plan. CRR members use scientific ingenuity and the extensive Shared Resources provided by HCI to make new discoveries, and they collaborate with members of the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program and the Experimental Therapeutics Program to translate these discoveries to the clinic and population in the areas of cancer prevention, target identification, biomarker development, prognostics, diagnostics, and treatment development. CRR research is centered on the following Specific Aims: 1) to elucidate mechanisms underlying cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival; 2) to uncover mechanisms and pathways mediating tumor metastasis; and 3) to understand tumor development and response to therapy. CRR is comprised of 37 members, representing 15 academic departments and four schools/colleges at the University of Utah. CRR members are well-funded, with $8.2M in peer-reviewed grant funding, of which $3.0M (33%) is from the NCI. The remainder of the peer-reviewed funding portfolio includes grants focused on cellular cancer mechanisms from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. Ninety-three percent of full members have current, peer- reviewed, cancer-focused funding. In the current funding cycle, CRR members published 266 cancer-focused papers; 14% of these represent intra-programmatic collaborations, and 41% stem from inter-programmatic collaborations. The synergistic aims of the CRR Program create a highly productive, collaborative, and impactful research environment that is bolstered by the organizational capacity, infrastructure, and Shared Resources of the Cancer Center. CRR fosters excellence in basic science discovery in cancer biology; 28% of this Program’s papers were high-impact publications (journal impact factor >10). These discoveries directly led to six new investigator-initiated trials in the current funding period. Program Leaders facilitate meaningful, productive, interdisciplinary collaborations to achieve the goal of discovering and exploiting new mechanisms that underlie tumorigenesis and metastasis. Our success in collaborative intra- and inter-programmatic science is underscored by successful competition for nine new multi-principal investigator grants in the current funding period.